Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

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Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearchMy research is in the area of human-environment interactions in land systems. I develop integrated approaches to study land use change by linking remote sensing, GIS and socio-economic data. I aim at better understanding causes and impacts of changes in tropical forests, drylands, and farming systems. I currently focus on three related themes: land use transitions – i.e., the shift from deforestation (or land degradation) to reforestation (or land sparing for nature), – the influence of globalization on land use decisions, and the interactions between public and private governance aimed at promoting sustainable land use. My research is mostly focused on tropical regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

TeachingI teach a course for graduate and undergraduate students on satellite remote sensing of land (Winter). In Spring, I co-teach a graduate-level course on Earth System Dynamics, including the human dimensions of global environmental changes.

Professional ActivitiesI was Chair of the international scientific project Land Use and Land Cover Change (IGBP/IHDP LUCC) from 1999 to 2005. I also contributed to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. I am often consulted by international organizations on issues related to tropical deforestation, desertification and the potential role of tropical forests in mitigating climate change. I am Foreign associate at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In addition to my research at Stanford, I am involved in several European research projects.

BioJim Leape is the William and Eva Price Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. He also serves as co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions. Through research, writing and direct engagement with private and public sector leaders, Jim looks at how to drive large-scale systemic shifts to sustainability, with particular interest in expanding private sector leadership on sustainability globally and, specifically, in China.

Jim has more than three decades of conservation experience, spanning a broad range of conservation issues on every continent. From 2005 to 2014, he served as Director General of WWF International and leader of the global WWF Network, which is one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, active in more than 100 countries. In that capacity, he worked with government, business and civil society leaders on a wide range of issues, including climate change, marine conservation, forest protection, water resources management, and sustainability in global commodity markets. Before going to WWF International, Jim directed the conservation and science initiatives of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a leading philanthropy in the U.S. Previously, he served as executive vice president of WWF-US in Washington, D.C.; as a lawyer for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya; as a law professor; and as a litigator for the National Audubon Society and for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jim serves on the boards of the Marine Stewardship Council, Mission 2020, and the Luc Hoffmann Institute; on the Global Future Council for the Environment of the World Economic Forum; and on the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development, which advises the Premier of China. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the ClimateWorks Foundation.

Leape received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School.

BioProfessor Lepech's research focuses on the integration of sustainability indicators into engineering design, ranging from materials design, structural design, system design, to operations management. Such sustainability indicators include a comprehensive set of environmental, economic, and social costs. Recently his research has focused on the design of sustainable high performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCCs) and fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs), the impacts of sustainable materials on building and infrastructure design and operation, and the development of new life cycle assessment (LCA) applications for building systems, transportation systems, water systems, consumer products. Along with this he is studying the effects that slowly diffusing sustainable civil engineering innovations, and the social networks they diffuse through, can have on achieving long term sustainability goals.

Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am currently pursuing research in several different areas. 1) Where can western and non-western feminisms converge? What contributions can feminist philosophy of science make to understanding science and sustainability policy in so-called developing countries? 2) Articulating the relations between general, individualist, epistemology and epistemology of science. 3) How does a statistical understanding of data change traditional philosophical questions about evidential relations?

Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Luby’s research interests include identifying and interrupting pathways of infectious disease transmission in low income countries. He works primarily in Bangladesh.